Work Text:
Rehabilitation Log #243 | Caleb
ID: 03301939
Subject/Species: Bruce/Homo aquaticus enteroctopus
Notes: Bruce continues to show no desire to eat, shows no signs of improvement after switching to the 16 hour diet cycle. Researcher Abbott notes this as early indication of suicidal indication.
Bruce watched the methodical back-and-forth motions of the cleaning man as he swished his soft-ended stick against the floor over and over outside the tank. Most of the lights beyond the glass wall had been turned off or dimmed already. There would be no tapping on Bruce's walls for a few more hours still.
Bruce's long, dark body laid out languidly across the floor of his tank. It was a luxury to have a tank so large as this one, one that allowed him room to properly stretch out his tentacles and still have room to spare. Gone were the barren, lifeless walls of his previous enclosures; this tank had a variety of real sea plants, colorful and flowering, and built-in rocky structures with alcoves easy to hide within.
The upgrade hadn't been for him. Bruce had known that long before the tank had been ready for living in. It was all designed with the baby in mind.
As if on cue, Bruce felt wriggling beneath one of his thick tentacle arms and lifted up. Bruce chittered softly at the azure baby blues blinking blearily back at him.
Dick whined and floomped into the sand on his back. Bruce ducked his head under his own raised tentacle to press his cheek against the child's forehead. Dick grumbled as he did so, mashing his pudgy child fingers against Bruce's face to shove him away. Bruce relented and pulled back.
"Bad dream?" Bruce murmured. Dick shrugged. While he was as hyperactive as any child, he needed ample rest during night hours. Unfortunately for both of them, Dick had yet to sleep fully through the night since he'd gotten to the aquarium.
Bruce sighed and rolled over, hoisting Dick up onto his chest. They made quite the pair, the two of them: the most colorful, shiny little guppy anyone this far north of the equator had ever seen, and his growling foreboding oil spill of a guardian.
"I'm not tired," Dick whispered against his shoulder. He was lying, of course, they both knew well enough that he would like nothing better than to fall asleep, if only he could do so dreamlessly. Bruce knew the feeling too well, and that only time could make it easier.
Bruce turned his gaze back to the window. The cleaning man had gone.
"Just try."
Rehabilitation Log #415 | Caleb
ID: 03301939
Subject/Species: Bruce/Homo aquaticus enteroctopus
Notes: After the most recent incident (see:[2]), the team has made the informed decision to keep the two genus' together until we find the equipment to separate them. Despite our doubts, Bruce has shown no overt signs of violence towards (Unnamed) subject 09171997. We do not currently have a basis for octo-mer behavior towards children on file. They are being closely monitored for changes.
Dick came to Bruce like a miracle, though Bruce knew it was only a fortunate accident on the part of the aquarium's poorly trained staff.
Bruce had been listless at the bottom of an isolation check, stuck there after ignoring the prodding hands of the people who kept plunging their hands into the water at the shallow bed near the top of his tank. Bruce's lack of compliance was not a new issue, but the staff were too lazy to improve their methods of punishing him for it.
Those at the top of the tank had tests for him. Poking and chafing, which Bruce had no capacity to tolerate. Bruce's first and only visit with them had been one filled with sharp objects, unwanted touch, and his lower half left out of the water for much too long. Bruce had no desire to repeat the experience.
So in isolation he went. Bruce could wait for a long time.
He was awoken from a fit of exhausted dozing by the mechanical whirring of the gate unlatching. It was a pleasant surprise; never before had he waited them out so quickly.
Only, before Bruce could unfurl from his dark corner to swim free of his dull prison, the most colorful little mer he'd ever seen drifted hesitantly through the opening. Bruce froze, kept still.
Bruce stared with curiosity mixed with confusion as the child glanced nervously up to the top of the tank, eyes flicking around until they landed on the only clear wall of the tank.
Bruce followed his gaze. The glass looked out into the area where the staff stood, the place where all the terrible loud noises and banging came from. Several Bruce recognized as those who gestured at him with their ugly sharp tools. They were yelling: gesturing and pointing frantically at Bruce, then at the baby who startled away from the noise.
The small mer glided backwards with his eyes trained on that wall, arms cupped defensively around his shoulders. He was drifting towards Bruce's corner, and Bruce could pinpoint the exact moment he became aware of Bruce himself.
His body completely stilled, locking eyes onto Bruce so impossibly wide and blue.
Bruce's inky black tentacles were spread along the walls and floor like an infection, a sight designed to ward off predators. They served no purpose here.
Slowly drawing his arms back towards his main body, Bruce curled his arms in on themselves to make himself look smaller. Less imposing. The exclamations outside the tank rose in their panicked volume.
Bruce ignored them, and kept his eyes trained on the child in front of him. The boy had yet to move sans the petrified tremble of his lower lip. Bruce did not even know why he was in here. That door should never have opened in the first place.
The aquarium had no others mers besides himself. At least, that's what Bruce had been made to believe. Terrified as the child was, he was likely a very recent addition to the facility.
Bruce lowered his chest down to the floor of the tank, making himself look even smaller. Bruce understood it as a sign of deferral, but that's not how it was received. The baby let out a tiny squeak, then a sound that Bruce had only every heard coming from his own mouth, at a very young age. Calling for his parents. His mother.
Bruce stilled. Waited for an angry set of adult mers to come barreling into Bruce's tank at the call. None came. No matter how the boy kept calling and calling, there was no answer.
Choking on his unanswered pleas, the child turned tail and darted to the opposite wall: the clear one filled with the anxious faces of the aquarium staff. As soon as he came close, they all started yelling louder. Pointing and banging like he could understand what they wanted from him.
He flinched back from the noise, the startle inching him back towards Bruce but stopping just short. Bruce tilted his head at the scene, unsure what the best course of action was.
In the end, instinct won out. A low, resonate crooning vibrated out of Bruce's own chest and reverberated through the water.
He slowly unfurled his large body from beneath himself, telegraphing every movement before he made it. The child hiccuped as he drew closer, but didn't move away, eyes still nervously trained on the wobbling faces of the staff.
The shrieking behind the glass rose to a crescendo. One particularly shrill scream rang out as Bruce arrived just short of the boy, frightening the kid enough that he flicked himself away from it, bumping right against Bruce's broad chest in the process. Bruce carefully did not move.
Bruce waited for him to dart away: to flinch back. He did not. A small, curled hand was pressed softly against Bruce's stomach without thought. And Bruce didn't know what it was about the small gesture, the minuscule display of trust, but Bruce melted.
Gently but firmly, the boy was wrapped up in Bruce's tangle of tentacles, safety nestled away from the prying eyes of the staff. Bruce thinks one of them may have been sobbing in terror at the sight. The powerful, coiling arms of their strongest, most volatile mer, wrapped around the baby they had so poorly cared for.
They were lucky Bruce was not planning to harm him.
Bruce's chest rumbled beneath the baby's ear as he shuddered. He swam steadily back to his darkened corner with his newly acquired guest. And he really was very young; a boy with no parents. It wasn't hard to guess what had happened.
He was the most colorful thing Bruce had ever seen, bright scales gleaming in a beautiful display of red, yellow, and green. Bruce tucked himself back into his previous spot, the baby nestled within his arms. He purred lowly, waiting for the child to relax. It took several rounds of stuttered starting and stopping before Bruce finally found the purring frequency that worked best.
Squirming and whining gave way to sleepy blinks. And then the child was asleep. Bruce ran a tired hand through the downy fluff of the boy's hair, remarking at how blissfully soft it was. He cast his gaze over to the glass, and found that the staff had not left. They had simply gone silent. In surprise or awe or fear Bruce did not know, nor did he care.
The baby was a warm, steady weight on his chest. His scales brought a spark of color to the tank that Bruce didn't know he wanted. He could stay, Bruce decided, for now. He would not let the staff take him until then.
Rehabilitation Log #423 | Caleb
ID: 03301939, 09171997
Subject/Species: Bruce/Homo aquaticus enteroctopus, Dick/Homo aquaticus splendidus
Notes: Bruce has been eating more. Hopefully due to a desire to set a good example for the baby. He cracks open all Dick's shells for him and gives him the meat, (note: behavior observed in pod-based species in Georgia Aquarium (see:[4])). All attempts to separate them have been unsuccessful. Maria is contacting management to see if they may be kept together for continued observation.
When the staff came to take the boy away, some hours later, Bruce would not give him up.
He kept both of them tucked in the corner, the child caged beneath his arms. A couple brave souls had come down in dive gear, attempting to extract him. Bruce lazily batted them away without taking his eyes away from his new pod mate.
"Did they feed you yet?" Bruce murmured lowly. Not in any language the divers could understand, of course.
The kid flicked his big blue eyes from the flailing divers back to Bruce.
"Mm mm. They tried, but I can't do it." His voice was small and nervous. Bruce frowned.
"Can't what?" He asked.
"It's a shell. Mama breaks them open for me…" the boy sniffled.
"Oh…" Bruce trailed off. He'd almost forgotten how that had felt. The feeling of being so, so hungry. Unable to crack open the easiest prey in Gotham Bay and too slow to snatch any of the darting fish. Hunger had amplified the loneliness, the emptiness of the loss that Bruce had been too young to bear. If not for Alfred finding him, days before he would have succumbed to his weakness, Bruce would have starved.
And oh, how Bruce missed Alfred now.
"We'll find you something, baby. Okay?" Bruce gazed down at the child. Shoved another diver across the tank, who let out a muffled shout as he tumbled away.
The boy wrinkled his nose. "Baby? My name's Dick."
Bruce furrowed his brow. "It means–" Paused. "Dick?"
"Yes."
A bit of an odd name, but suiting enough.
One of the divers had gotten uncomfortably close again. Bruce went to flick them off, but as he did so another swept in after him, lunging for the gap Bruce's tentacle had left in his cocoon and brushing his fingers against Dick's tail fin.
That was as far as he got before Bruce was snarling and yanking him away with incredible ferocity. Not with his tentacles, either, but his set of human arms corded with hard muscle. Dick squirmed within the bramble of Bruce's tentacles: in an attempt to either move towards or away from the altercation, Bruce wasn't sure.
Grappling with the aquarium staff was a short affair, of which Bruce came out on top. The nail in the coffin was Bruce unhooking the oxygen tank from the man's mask before launching him upwards toward the surface. His friend quickly followed suit, leaving Bruce and his new charge alone once more.
Rehabilitation Log #428 | Caleb
ID: 03301939, 09171997
Subject/Species: Bruce/Homo aquaticus enteroctopus, Dick/Homo aquaticus splendidus
Notes: Dick has been approved by management to stay with Bruce. Our team is excited for both of them; the relationship has proved to be steadily beneficial for both of them. The new shark enclosure tank is being reallocated into a facility for the two of them together, as soon as they are approved for guest observation.
The gate on the far wall creaked open for the first time in days, and Bruce looked up warily from the crab he had been so carefully gutting down the stomach with a single claw. Dick, who had been watching him patiently, jumped at the noise. Bruce was starting to think his ears may be extra sensitive, he got scared at the smallest things.
The isolation tank had quickly morphed from comforting to suffocating as the time they spent inside it dragged on. Bruce had been on the receiving end of the experience many times before; The only difference was that Bruce was not merely experiencing it, but watching his own emotions play out on the young face of a child as well. Dick was antsy, and squirming. He wouldn't stay still until the divers came back again, this time baring food instead of probing hands, but they were all the same to him. Bruce had no problem hiding the child beneath his own behemoth form to ease his fears.
The screech of groaning metal on metal echoed through the still water as the rusted gate reached its peak. Bruce pierced the crab between its eyes. The zip and displacement of water was all that alerted him of Dick's disappearance before he was already gone, off towards the opening.
Bruce hissed in alarm, dropping the limp crustacean and scrambling up after him. Dick, small and quick with his head start, slipped through the barrier before Bruce could catch him. Bruce clambered after him, long heavy limbs dragging as he glided through the opening.
Dick hadn't gone far, hovering nervously a few feet into the new tank and staring at Bruce with wide eyes. Bruce was quick to snatch him up again, reeling him back in by the shoulders. Bruce tried thumbing under the boy's chin, but Dick shoved him away in favor of pointing frantically behind him. Not big on words, was he.
The door behind them slid shut with a low thud.
The new tank wasn't dissimilar to the one they just left, but it was smaller. Bruce couldn't make himself relax however, and only drew Dick closer to himself when the floor beneath them started rising, forcibly pushing them towards the surface.
Bruce thrashed as his heavy form was slowly emerged from the water, gravity weighing him down so much more out of water, rendering him practically immobile. He made a fruitless effort to cover Dick with his arms, but it was useless. The last thing he felt was a pinprick in his arm, and spotty blotches like stars, and then he was gone.
Rehabilitation Log #431 | Caleb
ID: 03301939, 09171997
Subject/Species: Bruce/Homo aquaticus enteroctopus, Dick/Homo aquaticus splendidus
Notes: Relocation went smoothly as able. Bruce was combative but unwilling to leave Dick, which made the transfer easy. pH and salinity adjustments to the new tank need to be cleared with Sara.
The tapping on the glass was a constant headache. It never seemed to cease for more than a minute, and if it was possible, Dick seemed to hate it even more than Bruce did.
Dick told Bruce that the place he was from, he used to do tricks with his parents for food. A travelling circus, it was called.
The staff were furious that Bruce kept hiding Dick inside his tentacles during the guest hours. But Bruce wasn't stupid. The second the public started thinking Dick was interesting, his fate would be sealed. Bruce wasn't going to let that happen. He'd tucked them into a dark corner of the enclosure each day at opening, not letting staff or tapping fingers catch even a glimpse of the boy's bright scales.
"Have you ever been to the ocean?" Bruce had asked him. Taptaptap, went the glass behind them. Bruce ignored it, shifting his large, dark body to cover any any glimpse of the tank's viewing window from Dick's eyeline. He cracked open a crab leg and pulled the soft white flesh from inside, offering it to the boy. He was tucked up into the crevice of the enclosure's largest rock formation, impossible to see from the tank's windows. He gave Bruce a small smile, gummy palms closing around the proferred meat.
"When I was really little. But I don't remember it that much," he said, nibbling on the rubbery texture of the crab.
Bruce glanced behind him. Taptaptap, the glass went again. The overhead flourscent lights above the tank were glaring and uncomfortable, a little more suited for Dick's eyes than Bruce's.
"That's okay, you'll see it one day. I promise." The water rippled gently around them, pushed by an artificial fan neither of them could see.
"Really?" Dick whispered, shyly.
"Yes. I'll teach you everything you need to know. Then they'll let you go." Something bright flashed and clicked behind them, one of those obnoxious black rectangles that the window people always seemed to be holding. Bruce scowled, and shifted to block Dick from view again.
"Why don't they just release us together? So you could teach me outside."
Bruce doesn't know how to explain. "I can't go with you, if they let you go. I'm not meant to leave. But you will be, okay? I'll make sure of it, they have to let you go."
That's why Bruce was never going to let anyone see Dick, not during daytime hours. And why he never let the boy do any of his circus tricks when anyone might catch even a glimpse. If he wanted to be let go, he needed to be boring. He needed to be unremarkable. It was perhaps something cruel to ask of the most shiny and colorful little guppy in the world, but it was a small price to pay for his freedom. For the gift of not spending the rest of his days rotting in this tank with Bruce.
Bruce can tell Dick wants to argue by the way his mouth twists, and tells him, gently, "You have to be good, do you understand me? You won't get to leave if they have any reason to make you stay.”
And Bruce promises himself, in that moment, that he won't be the reason Dick stays in this tank. No matter how much it hurts, and how much it will hurt, to be alone again, to lose him. When it comes down to it, Bruce needs to let him go.
Dick's cheeks go red, the way they do when he's frustrated or wants to cry. "That's stupid."
"It is, but it's how we work. Tell me you understand."
Dick glowers at him, but he can't hold onto it. He bursts forward in a flurry of color, tucking himself into Bruce's arms. He nods against his neck.
"Thank you," Bruce breathes into his puff of hair. He stares upwards into the white flourescent spotlights above their tank once more, closing his eyes to pretend the warmth he feels on his face is actually the sun, instead. As much as Dick's circumstances here are pitiful, and painful, reminding Bruce of a much worse time, he allows himself just a moment to feel a grateful that he isn't alone anymore.
Rehabilitation Log #579| Caleb
ID: 03301939, 09171997
Subject/Species: Bruce/Homo aquaticus enteroctopus, Dick/Homo aquaticus splendidus
Notes: Bruce has shown remarkable improvement over the past year since being introduced to Dick. Plans to transfer Dick to a rehab-to-ocean facility have been postponed indefinitely. Directors want to keep Dick with Bruce for as long as possible for Bruce's welfare.